Maria Laura Avignolo
03/09/2021 14:00
Clarín.com
World
Updated 03/09/2021 16:05
Buckingham Palace broke the long silence after 48 hours of intense pressure.
A three-paragraph statement
, on behalf of Queen Elizabeth.
Until now, silence was the answer to harsh accusations of racism, stigmatization, family and courtly neglect by Harry and Meghan, Dukes of Sussex, in their now famous interview, which was screened only on Monday night in Great Britain.
Critics that have generated the worst institutional crisis in the Crown, since the abdication of King Edward VIII and the death of Princess Diana.
"The whole family is saddened
to learn the full extent of how challenging the past few years have been for Harry and Meghan," the palace statement said.
"The issues raised, in particular race,
are concerning
. While some memories may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed in private by the family." Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be very dear members of the family "concluded the statement, on behalf of Prince Harry's sovereign and grandmother.
The statement took a journalistic eternity.
Meghan and Harry's accusations were too toxic to rush and make a mistake. In the end, the tone was personal, with an affectionate ending for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
The queen made it clear that racism concerned her and her family.
But that "memory" of the famous conversation between Harry and a family member who asked him about the color of little Archie's skin was not exactly the same but they will be taken seriously. A diplomatic way of disagreeing with Meghan and Harry.But for the sovereign, this is an issue that is discussed "in the family" and not in front of her subjects.
The statement is only three paragraphs long and many people will think it was too short and imprecise.
But in it there is an admission of the importance of the debate on racism that the accusations imply. They want to assure the people that they understood the message and will treat it seriously.
But they want to treat him privately
and seek to assure the British that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and little Archie will remain a part of family life.
Queen Elizabeth refused to sign a statement last night
, prepared by the courtiers, to alleviate the tension and pressure that at that time fell like a new grenade on the palace.
It highlighted the Royal Family's love for Meghan and Harry and the Windsors' concern for the couple.
Harry's sovereign and grandmother asked for more time to consider an answer.
The palace document was a job at least four virtual hands: the queen herself, her private secretary, other members of her team, and Prince Charles.
The prince, next heir, consulted with his son William, the two future kings, if this crisis manages to keep the line of succession intact.
And now that?
A generation jump should not be ruled out, according to royal correspondents.
A hypothesis that also emerged after the death of Princess Diana, when her ex-husband, Prince Charles, reached alarming levels of unpopularity with the Royal House.
The Queen personally overcame the crisis,
in a massive public relations exercise, and returned the House of Windsor's mystery and durability, threatened when they did not want to pay homage to the Princess of Wales and stayed at Balmoral Palace.
The Buckingham Palace this Tuesday.
Photo: EFE
Look also
In Photos: Prince Harry of England and his wife Meghan Markle with Oprah Winfrey
Prince Harry,
his favorite grandson
, son of Diana and Charles, drilled with Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex and his mixed-race wife, all the reconstruction work of the royal goldsmith.
From the bottom of the Royal Family, two of their own accused them of racism, of how a pregnant duchess with feelings of suicide
was not helped
by the courtiers because it did not suit the institution.
Who was?
But there was another damaging accusation on the lips of Meghan: an anonymous member of the royal family expressed to Harry in repeated conversations his concern "about the skin color" of the baby to be born, with a mixed-race mother, a black grandmother and a white grandfather. .
The baby
would have no title or security
, he warned.
They decided not to identify that member of the Royal Family publicly because "it would be very harmful to him."
Today in Britain the career of journalists is to
identify
who was the member of the royal family who said it and who has the ability to decide whether
or not
the baby
could have titles
or
enjoy
security
protection or not
.
If they identify him and one of them is Prince Charles or Prince William, he surely
cannot be the next sovereign
.
Racism is not tolerated in the 21st century, in the middle of Black Live Matters, even behind closed doors.
Labor and its leader, Sir Keir Starmer, are calling for an investigation into racism by denouncing Meghan.
The red-hot British newspapers.
Photo: EFE
If something was missing from this institutional scandal, the statements of US President Joe Biden arrived, who
saw the entire
two hours of the interview in the United States.
"The Duchess showed a lot of courage," said the president, through his White House spokeswoman.
“For anyone who comes out and talks about their own mental health issues and tells their personal story,
that means courage
.
And this is certainly something the president believes in.
And he's talking about the importance of investing in this, "said Jen Psaki, White House press secretary.
Britain maintains special relations with the United States, seeks a free trade agreement, they are close allies.
No one rules out that Meghan could dedicate herself to politics and seek to be a senator for California, replacing Kamala Harris.
Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who had tea with Meghan in Windsor and asked when she was pregnant that they were not racist in dealing with her,
also expressed
her
opinion
.
He said he found the interview
"heartbreaking
.
"
"Young women should not be forced into a mold that is no longer relevant, not only to them, but to our society," she added.
Archie's color
Meghan, in one of the most damaging statements, said that when she was pregnant with her son Archie, "concerns" had been expressed "about the color of the skin" that the baby could have.
"These were family conversations with him (Harry) l," he clarified.
And the prince confirmed it.
But both refused to identify the person.
Harry and Meghan's statement was internal heavy artillery, former "friendly fire", against the Royals, who can hardly defend themselves.
At least they won't be able to respond with their two-line communication.
This time any response will have family, institutional and popularity implications or greater discredit to the Royal House.
The Sussexes and their son, Archie.
Photo: AP
Archie's title, Meghan's abandonment, her suicidal thoughts, her lack of support, are terrible accusations,
much like
those of Princess Diana.
But that the treatment of the Dukes of Sussex was due to racism is devastating to the monarchy as an institution.
It questions its legitimacy in the 21st century, in the face of a kingdom divided by Brexit, beset by the pandemic and with the Royal Family reduced, by the Prince Andrew pedophilia scandal and the self-exile of Meghan and Harry.
The reasons for that departure - "partly because of racism," as Harry confessed - could not be more damaging to the archaic House of Windsor.
Accusations of racism are toxic and cannot be ignored.
The palace's response is probably
the most difficult in the last 100 years
not to transform the crisis into something worse.
History repeats itself
Prince Harry's revelation about the severance of relations with his father, Prince Charles, is painful but revealing of
the future
king's
personality
.
After Princess Diana died, Princes William and Harry, her sons, were raised by him.
A distant father, with the boys interned at Eton at 13 and until they were 18. In charge of Tiggy, his nanny, when they came back from vacation.
A marriage to Camilla, her lover and the cause of the breakdown of his marriage to Diana, was
a traumatic decision
for the boys.
The taboo of not discussing their mother's death with them led a desperate Harry
to therapy
20 years later.
Once again, Prince Charles behaves with his son as his parents, the Queen and Prince Felipe, did with him: he breaks the dialogue with Harry, demands that he explain by letter what he wants, does not answer the phone, refuses to pay the expenses he had agreed to pay at the Sandringham summit, when the Sussexes were already living in Canada.
He leaves his son, who was born and lived in custody and fought the Taliban in Afghanistan, with no security or money to pay for himself, his wife and their young son.
Diana's funeral in 1997. Photo: AFP
The move to California is due to this: a millionaire television producer safely lent a house to two Sussex, unexpectedly orphans and "dispossessed", who have to resist the inheritance left to Harry by Princess Diana, his mother, and the queen mother, her great-grandmother, plus Meghan's seven million, which she earned during her acting career.
Now the 100 million dollars of Netflix are added.
One reason why British newspapers accuse him of
a celebrity culture.
Carlos' reaction is going to be the most observed because it has been the most criticized.
Father and son do not speak
, although Harry wants to work hard to rehabilitate their relationship.
But he feels disappointed in front of his father.
With his brother William there is no link either.
They feel that the exiled prince has broken the house codes.
Harry and Meghan's interview has already achieved something unthinkable:
rethinking the role of the Royal Family
, its archaic way of working.
When Queen Elizabeth assumed the throne, she vowed to serve the British all her life.
A promise that he keeps to the letter, still at 94 years old and accompanied by Prince Felipe, who will turn 100 in June and is hospitalized.
Elizabeth II and his wife, Prince Felipe.
Photo: AFP
Under the pressure of the now deceased Queen Mother and despite the pressure of Felipe, her husband, the sovereign
resisted any modernization
of the monarchy.
The institution was stronger than everything: than his family, his affections, his children, his private life.
A model that the prince described with one word:
"trapped."
He was "trapped" and managed to flee.
"My father and brother are still trapped in the system and they are not going to abandon it."
He said.
This dehumanization of the British monarchy and its archaic demands is going to be subjected to an
inevitable reform
, which probably does not wait for the death of the sovereign, who defends and personalizes them.
The urgency today is for the institutional survival of the constitutional monarchy model that governs the kingdom.
This lack of humanity is not healthy if the monarchy wants to project itself into the 21st century.
Divided, as in Brexit
As in Brexit, the British population has been divided generationally to accept or reject the interview.
A YouGov poll shows that 36 percent of people sympathize more with the Queen and the Royal Family and 22 percent more with Harry and Meghan.
When the poll is broken down
by age
, 48 percent of those aged 18 to 24 are more sympathetic to the Sussexes and only 9 percent of those over 65.
55 percent of those over 65 support the Royal Family compared to 15 percent of those between 18 and 24 years old.
A disturbing figure for the future of the House of Windsor because its consequences may be a debate in the future about the value of its existence.
Among conservatives, 64 percent of them sympathize with the queen and only 8 percent with Harry and Meghan.
Among Labor, 15 percent sympathize with the Royal Family and 38 percent with Harry and Meghan.
Prince Charles and Meghan's father
Prince Charles was the first member of the Royal Family to make a public appearance at a vaccination center, following the interview.
Photo: AP
When Prince Charles was the first member of the Royal Family to make a public appearance at a vaccination at Jesus House Church this Tuesday, after the interview, without saying a word and smiling, another father appeared on the scene: Meghan's.
Thomas Markle
does not speak to his daughter, because of an alleged sale of photos to tabloid photographers, nor does he know Harry or his grandson Archie.
This former television cinematographer raised Meghan and paid for her college, before divorcing her mother.
The Duchess of Sussex's father defended the royal family against accusations of racism in Meghan's interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Markle, speaking on ITV'S Good Morning Britain, said the alleged concern expressed by an anonymous member of the royal family about how dark Archie's skin would be when he was born was simply "a stupid question."
Thomas Markle.
Photo: archive
“I have great respect for royalty.
I don't think the British royal family is racist at all.
I don't think the British are racist.
I think Los Angeles is racist, California is racist, but I don't think the British are.
The question of what color will the baby be or how dark the baby will be.
.
.
It could be someone who asked a stupid question, rather than being a total racist, "he said.
“All this about the color and how dark the baby
is is bullshit
.
I married a very beautiful black woman and had a beautiful daughter.
And if it had come out dark, it wouldn't have been a problem.
If it had been something in between, it would not have been a problem: a beautiful baby "he declared.
Markle, who got into a fight with her daughter after she allegedly helped fake paparazzi photos before the wedding, added: “A racist comment should be investigated.
But all I'm saying is that it could have just been a stupid question from someone. "
“The bottom line is that I have never heard from Meghan or Harry in any shape or form.
When they say that I am taking advantage of the press, basically what I do - because I have not heard from them - is make a story for the press.
If I don't hear from them in 30 days, I'll do another story for the press.
When they decide to talk to me, I will stop talking to the press, "he proposed.
Markle, 76, admitted that the revelations of her daughter's state of mind "really bothered me."
But she added that she had "practically cheated on her entire family," so she "did
n't
really
have anyone
to contact."
Still without end
It will not be easy for the palace to put an honorable end to this story.
"Never complain, Never explain"
(never complain, never explain), the Windsor mantra, this time
will not work again.
Institutionally they have a crisis greater than that of the death of Princess Diana and it affects their foundations.
The accusation of racism not only involves the Royal House but also Great Britain, the press, its institutions.
The world is discussing it.
They saw in 60 countries to the interview.
It puts the kingdom in front of the mirror and must analyze its attitudes towards minorities, accents, immigrants, refugees, integration, Brexit, the outside, its former colonies and adapt to new times.
They were 120 minutes that destroyed the reputation of the monarchy and accused them of racism in the country, from within, with the voice of two of their own.
It can only lead them to modernize and change.
Even if they never meet Meghan, Harry, Archie and the baby on the way again.
Paris, correspondent
ap
